Bubblewrap Minerals : Exploring the Intersection of Waste and Beauty

Like many people, the destruction of ecosystems gets me feeling hopeless and overwhelmed. Making art has become part coping and part creative exercise. I like to take my anxiety-driven catastrophic thoughts and turn them into a fictional dystopian narrative. What would change in this alternative reality? What unique constraints might alter the art and jewelry created by its inhabitants? I then make jewelry specific to that imagined world.

Inspiration

This is the first body of work I made after graduating in 2019. The seed for this series can be found in the last piece I made for my thesis collection, 'Year of Plastic. That last piece was called 'Mountain Knuckle Ring.' Its composition resembles a mountain, and I chose it because I anxiously imagined the growth of trash could be so exponential we might end up living on mountains of our own trash. 

When starting my new body of work, Bubble Wrap Minerals, I started thinking about what was inside that trash mountain. Instead of rock, minerals, soil, and organic matter, it was layers of plastics. So, instead of valuable ore, veins of reusable ancient plastic are mined.

Materials

The source of the bubble wrap I used came from a collection I built up during my thesis year in school. Through years of experimentation, I developed techniques to create forms that resemble differently shaped crystallized minerals. (shameless plug: I teach these techniques in a virtual workshop. See here when it is scheduled next) 

Why rings?

Let's have a quick pause from the Bubble Mineral Series and define Contemporary Art Jewelry. It's niche; often, only people who make contemporary art jewelry can define it. Even then, our definitions sometimes don't align with one another. My definition: Contemporary Art Jewelry is a sculptural practice that uses traditional jewelry-making techniques but challenges them by playing with scale, wearability, and unconventional materials. The meaning of the material, the scale, and how it interacts with the body is used to explore a conceptual narrative. For me, these narratives involve the environmental impact of plastic waste, the preservation of ecosystems, and the processing of feelings of shame, fear, and hope.

Using art jewelry as a creative modality allows me to keep the human experience centered on the ideas I am exploring with each piece. Rings are worn on the hands, the only jewelry we see on ourselves regularly. Our hands bring objects near and throw them out, wield tools, create music and art, and put thoughts to paper. They can be seen as a symbol of care. I appreciate the vocabulary these themes provide when choosing a ring to create work with. 

Why look back?

Though I am reflecting on this for several reasons, the main one is a 2024 goal to create a new body of work. I want to think about this Mineral Bubble Wrap series to see if any seeds I planted then might be ready to harvest in this new body of work.